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Hi guys,

I've been painting for over a year now and have had some great advice from this forum. I've been using windsor and newton series 7 brushes and gw paints but they leave a really horrible textur. I've tried thinning the paints and feeding them through a mesh to get rid of all the grains that seem to come in these paints but they're still a poorer quality, especially at leaving brushstrokes quite visible in comparison to some of the models I've seen my friends paint.

Most of them are using Vallejo but keep telling me gw is fine. I am also starting my own chapter and want the base troops to be white which seems to be incredibly hard to paint using gw paints. Is there anything I should be especially looking for when buying and using vallejo paints?
P.S. I don't use airbrushes even though I've been told they save time, Ijust prefer using a brush from scratch. I'm guessing that doesn't help trying to acquire a uniform finish but am assuming that's what vallejo paints will help to achieve?

Thanks in advance!
Regards, Giles.

As said, Vallejo is good, though most go for game color. I do not know about the other ones they have

Have not tried P3 but I hear they're pretty good too

Not sure on army painter paint bottles, but they have some pretty awesome colored spray cans

I highly recommend Vallejo paints. If you ever get an airbrush their Model Air line will work right out of the bottle. They also have a huge range of colors and the paints are great quality and a bit cheaper than a GW pot. I haven't tried reaper or P3 yet so i don't have anything to say about them. Hope this helps!

Once you go Vallejo you never go back its a great product at a good price. Their Lighter colors tend to be a bit grainy, but i havent seen a paint range that does not have that problem.

Vallejo are great paints, but I honestly can't say that I find them to be significantly different to GW paints in terms of coverage or consistency. I used GW paints all the time, as do hundreds of other people here. They are also great paints (albeit in annoying pots). I don't have the problem you are describing. This makes me wonder if it is really the paint at fault, or something you are doing wrong. Obviously if it's the later... Switching to Vallejo won't help.

Would you mind telling us more about what and how you are painting?

Do you wash your minis with warm soapy water prior to painting?
Are you mainly concerned about Plastic/metal?
What colour undercoat? (is it spray undercoat?)
What sized brush are you using, for what areas?
What colours are you trying to cover the base coat with?
Are you using a palette, or painting straight out the pot?
Do you use fluid retarder?
How much time do you leave before applying more coats?
Which colours give you the most problems?
What exactly happens?
How thick would you say your final coat ends up?
Do you varnish your miniatures?

If you tell us exactly what you are doing, then maybe we can figure it out for you. You can still grab some Vallejo, but maybe this way you won't have to ditch your GW paints after all.

All the above advice is awesome. In reference to your wanting to paint a white scheme on your marines-good luck and prepare to put in a lot of work. Regardless of what paint you use, it will be difficult. Awesomepaintjob.com has a good tutorial.
I use Vallejo game and model colour. I also use GW metallics and foundations. Your equipment appears to be top notch-W&N Series 7 and GW paints are about as good as you can get. My beef with GW paints are the crappy containers and the price. Definitely not the quality. Are you using a wet palette?

I tried P3 paints when they were initially released and I made the switch to them as I was very happy with them. Their metallics (especially the golds) were poor at first, however they seemed to have fixed the formulations and I have not had a problem since. They paint on really smooth and have excellent coverage for lighter colors over darks as they are very rich in pigment. They are great in my opinion.

Vallejo Paints are at best OK.
I use both Vallejos and GWs.

I would reccomend HUmbrol paints.
They are enamel, so they are somewhat harder to clean off of your brushes,
but they have great coverage and they always go on smooth.

I don't paint much in the way of metal's, I like to stick to plastic if possible.

I trim off all the cast lines and remove all the shavings using a compressed air can. Prime with Humbrol grey primer but don't wash the models prior to this...?
I always use black spray as a base and I'm currently painting BA so use thinned down layers of mechrite red (I've been told to always use a foundation for good coverage)layered with scab red followed by blood red which gives me a nice bright colour. The time between coats can differ as I try to do the same steps over different models. The 4 vets below took me about 2 days simultaneously painting each layer.
Line highlight with Blazing orange.
Then cover with sepia wash and re-apply blood red.
After every session I clean my brushes using Revell cleaner.
Final coat thickness can vary depending on the model and if I make mistakes especially using metallics as I don't thin metallics. I've wasted many bottles of paint trying this but they just tend to take ages to dry and the flake seems to separate really easy.
On standard troops I apply gloss varnish on the shoulders and microsol, transfer, matt varnish and weather. I haven't varnished all the models yet because I haven't made the bases up, as you can see and still need to weather the model in places before either using purity seal or something to that effect.
I'm happy with the results as they took me a long time (apart from the vet on the right).





That looks fine except when I apply the same method to white, the grey foundation paint is the start of all my woes because even after thinning with water or with tamiya acrylic thinner and passing through a mesh, their is still a lot of grains in it that give the model a horrible texture. That can be really difficult to paint over and the faults are always at the back of my mind so I'm never happy with the model. I have a sanguinary priest in white that if I can find my camera, I will get round to posting up. I suppose if this is still common within Vallejo paints then that is not the answer to my problem but I'm also getting a little strapped for cash and seem to get through gw paints quite quickly...

Okay, well I think you are definitely using unnecessary coats of paint. For painting plastic you can skip the primer. You can also skip the black spray. Foundation paints are necessary for covering up black, but black isn't really necessary so you can skip the mechrite red. Although I haven't found mechrite red covers significantly better than Scab Red so you could keep the black if you really wanted and skip mechrite red anyway.

Wash your miniatures with warm soapy water before painting, this will help remove any finger grease and other chemicals from the surface (from when you assembled them). If you have a hair dryer around the house, you can use that to dry them quickly. If not leave them on some paper, and cover them so they don't pick up any extra dust.

When you're ready, you can just go straight in and base coat them with Scab Red. If you find it slides off the plastic too easily, you might need to make it less watery, but don't worry about it too much, just get a thin coat on there and let it dry. The next coat will stick better. Then you can add the blood red, and you have the same thing with 3 less coats.

If you want to get darkness back into crevices and stuff, then it is probably more economical to use a wash. You can make your own wash using maybe Scab Red and a tiny bit of Black (depending on how dark you want to go) mixed together. Take your miniature (You want the last coat to be dry for a few hours, or with a hair dryer), then dip him, base and all into some clean water. Shake off the excess, and then stand him on some news paper. Next take your Scab Red-Black colour and paint it liberally of your wet miniature with a larger brush. What happens is the darker pigment can't stick, so it will slip off into the gaps. If it's too shady just add more water. If it isn't shady enough, lift off some water with the brush and add more paint. You can keep pushing it around until you are happy. Then leave it to dry naturally. It is important to make sure the base is wet too, so that excess water can run off easily onto the paper. it will take a while to dry, but when it does you should have some nice basic shading. Then you can go back over again with Blood Red to fix any areas where the wash dried in the wrong place.

For painting white, I would recommend using a white spray first, and then washing with a light grey, or pastel blue. Or you can just go straight on with the white using a brush. With a brush it might take a few coats before it is completely opaque.

I also paint Blood Angels. I usually start with White Spray, Blood Red, then wash with Scab Red. Or sometime White spray, Sepia Wash, then Blood Red (as this allows me a cheat way of painting skulls quickly).

You should varnish your miniatures as soon as possible to protect them (and also because you don't want dust and dirt on them when you do eventually get round to varnishing). Try using Gloss varnish over the whole mini first, as this has a levelling agent that will give you a really smooth surface (and it is easier to see). Then you can go over with Matte Varnish to remove the sheen.

Don't worry about not having based yet. You can usually get away with lots of varnish coats before it might ever be considered 'too thick'. Just varnish the base separately. For weathering you can weather over the varnish and then do another coat of varnish later. It shouldn't be a problem (in fact it is sometimes recommended, so you are able to remove the weathering easily if you go too far).

GW paints are good, people have issues with the pots and the price, but the actual paint is very good. So its certainly something your doing or possibly a faulty pot of paint.

From your description it does sound sound like your using a few unnecessary layers of paint.

You do need to prime, whatever the model is made out of, but it only needs to be a light coat and doesn't have to cover every inch of the mini fully. You don't need to use 2 types of spray. Im not sure how good good the humbrol primer is, but assuming its ok id personally do this for the red.

Prime with the grey primer using a light coat, then a couple of coats of either mechrite red or blood red (i never use foundation paints) a black wash, touch up with blood red on everywhere but the recesses and highlight.

*edit* what size brush are using for basecoats? You can use quite a large series 7 as they come to such a fine point.

Ok cool. I'll try skipping a load of layers from now on then.

I have a collection of brushes actually, my series 7 are size 2 and size 000 but I also have a larger german sable brush thats unmarked that I use for covering large area's like tanks etc and I have a knackered fine detail brush from gw and a drybrush and stippling brush. I've never used the stippling brush...

I have been painting for many years now and have used a wide variety of paints. I use some GW, I like their metallics, and alot of the hobby paints like Apple Barrel, Anita's and the like I get at Hobby Lobby or other hobby stores. They are water base and you can thin them down for washing. As for primer I get the Armory primer, black and white. Primer is what you need for good adhesion to every surface, it helps to cover in single layers instead of coat after coat. The paints at the hobby stores come in big bottles and will last forever and they don't cost an arm and a leg. I have several bottles that I have been using for over 20 years. Hope this helps.